On Roads and Road Like Things

As mentioned previous, my main recommendation on driving in Korea, at least in cities, is don't. This is of course assuming you are used to driving in the USA or Canada (I would assume a lot of European countries too, but not having been there I can't comment). I will attempt in this post to explain why, and why I have called driving in Korea “bat-shit insane”. I will start off by giving you some advice that I was given when I started driving, “Always expect the other drivers on the road to do something stupid.” I have driven by this rule all over the US, but when I got here I learned “stupid” is a relative term.

I will start by explaining roads in Ulsan (I can't guarantee that this will hold true all over Korea, but I've been told by reliable contacts that it does for the most part, although it doesn't hold to the same degree away from cities). The first type of road in Ulsan is the big arteries. These are usually at least 6 lanes wide and intersect each other with roundabouts, although sometimes with standard traffic lights. These main arteries sometimes have other roads intersect them with lights, although the main purpose of these lights seems to be cross walks, and they have many places where there are lights for cross walks without any intersecting roads. The roads themselves look just like you would find on any big arterial in the US, with lanes and the like. The biggest difference is the actual driving on them, I will hold off comment on the actual driving for now.

The second type of road is basically everything else. With some exceptions, non-arterial roads do not have any lights, stop signs, yield signs, or really anything else. Another feature of these roads is that, despite the fact that they have two lanes (a yellow lane divider goes down the middle of a lot of them), there is usually only room for one car on the road at a time. This is due to cars parked in legal spots down the road. As such you will have long lines of cars stopped at a wide spot on the road, usually an intersection, while cars from the other direction squeeze through the narrow spot (it should be noted at this point that most such streets do not have sidewalks, so you are squeezing by with the cars as a pedestrian). You also find people trying to turn on to another street, only they can't fit because there is a car on that street trying to get onto their street, often trying to turn left. The first car turns partly onto the second street making it difficult for the second car to turn left, which is the only thing that will allow the first car to get onto the street. Sometimes you have this situation from all directions, and one or more of the directions is stuck due to the before mentioned problem of narrow roads. Thus you have 3 or 4 cars in an intersection all trying to go different ways at the same time) As such everything comes to a standstill. This sounds bad, but this is one of the few times pedestrians can easily get across the street.

Allow me to defend my last statement. The first thing I noticed about the roads in Korea is that pedestrians do not have the right of way at intersections, or cross walks (unless there is a light), at stop signs, or really anywhere without a green cross walk sign. This is an important point, and I assure you that I am not exaggerating at all in anything I'm about to say. If I go to a marked cross walk (without a light) and I try to cross with a car anywhere nearby, the car will not stop, they may honk, they may swerve, but you do not have a right to cross that street while a car is coming. To add to this, let me ask you a question. You are driving down a small street (no lane dividers, like a residential area or a small commercial area), no lights, no stop signs, and lets say you see a kid(maybe 7-9) getting ready to cross the street, he's obviously checking both ways and such and he's at a labeled cross walk. Do you stop? If you were trained in the US, I'm going to assume you would, if not you're probably a jack-ass. In Korea it is expected that you won't stop (yes, even for young kids trying to cross a small street at a cross walk), even if you multiply that one kid by a dozen, and include kids that are younger. If you are a decent human being trying to keep young kids safe and you actually stop you will be honked at, even when the other driver can see the kids crossing. If you are the adult in this situation bravely standing in front of the car so that the kids can cross quickly in safety, you will be honked at.

Okay, so those are the two main types of roads here in Ulsan, now allow me to explain the actual driving style of Koreans. Basically Korean driving is based on a big game of Chicken. If you're driving down one of those narrow roads, whoever stops first is the one who is stuck until the traffic lets up. If you're driving down a big arterial and want to change lanes, whoever keeps moving over gets the lane. This explains why pedestrians are the low man on the totem pole since most pedestrians will give up when there is a car coming down the road right for them. Another thing to note about driving in Korea is that they are always looking forward. This may not sound like a bad thing, since you are supposed to keep your eyes on the road, but they are actually trained to always look forward, never turning their head. If this doesn't strike you as a bad thing, just think about what you (hopefully) do when you change lanes. Yeah, Koreans don't do that. Some cars have extra mirrors on their cars to reduce blind spots, but most cars don't have these. As such there is a lot of honking on Korean roads, not out of anger, but to let other drivers know that there is a car in their blind spot. To make it worse, if there is an accident due to a car changing lanes without checking their blind spot, whoever is farther back is at fault. Thus, if you are driving along and a car is a little ahead of you, enough that you are in his blind spot, and he decides he wants in your lane and moves over and hits you, you are at fault. Another thing to note is that lanes are not strict things, often cars will drive along in two lanes at a time, I guess they're just keeping their options open (I know this sometimes happens in the states, but this seems more the norm instead of the exception). Given all of this I have a hard time watching while anyone is driving, especially while I'm in the vehicle.

Thus far I have only spoken on driving, but parking isn't much better. It is not unusual to see cars double, tripled, or quadrupled parked. The worst I saw was at a bank with two rows of cars 7 deep with a building on one side and a high sidewalk on the other. This basically means the first car in wouldn't be able to move until at least 6 other cars moved. This was a bit more extreme than I normally see, but literally every day on the streets or parking lots I see cars double or tripled park. Sometimes I look at parking lots and am reminded of bad car lots, the kind where they have lots of cars jammed into their lot (probably due to some sale they're having), and you can't get most cars out without moving several others. Seeing this has often make me ask “Why” and “How”. If you are a faithful reader of this blog (and I assume you are) you will know that I shouldn't ask “Why”, but I couldn't help myself. Fortunately, as I felt the blood getting ready to burst forth from my head, there was an experienced foreigner nearby that I could ask. As it turns out, in paid parking lots the keys are often left with the attendant, and this person moves cars around as needed. On the street or in other situations where there is no attendant, the cars are either left in neutral with the parking brake on ( manuel transmission cars at least) and people just push them out of the way and then back. In other situations, all cars have cell phone numbers on them. If they are blocking you in you simply call that number and tell them to move their car. This stopped the blood from shooting from my brain, but it still makes me shake my head in wonder when I see it.

I'm sometimes ask what I miss most about home. It may sound stupid, but the thing I miss most about the USA is the driving system they have. I miss not having to dodge cars on my way to work, I miss not having to close my eyes when I get on a bus. I miss walking down the street and not marveling at the insanity of the roads at where I live. I miss not having to squeeze through moving cars in order to get somewhere. I miss all of this and I don't even drive here. I miss this most even though I haven't used an oven, a microwave, an oven, a clothes dryer, a TV nor been able to talk to anybody at a grocery store or restaurant in 2 months. While I certainly miss those things, I don't miss them on a daily basis.

On a final note, especially given my last paragraph, I want to make it clear that I have not exaggerated in anyway in this post. All of the examples given are ones that I have actually experienced or witnessed and reported as faithfully as possible. While I'm sure I'll come to get used to the roads in Korea, I doubt I'll ever find their system in anyway equal to the traffic system in the States.

(P.S. Please excuse grammatical errors in this and future posts. I know I'm college educated and all, but it's amazing how quickly your grammer goes when speaking with kids who are trying to learn English as a second language and you're trying to communicate with them. After a few hours of teaching it becomes perfectly appropriate to say "I good" or "they is happy" or "I was excitedly". Also you learn that you don't need things like "the" "a" "of" "is" "are", or any of the other "throw away" words, and dropping the "s" at the end of words should be expected. Sometimes I think my kids teach me more than I teach them. {To further this point, I read through this last section a couple of times before I realized I was missing a "s" at the end of a couple of words, it's amazing what you can miss when you're used to not hearing it})